


We All Have Wings

by orphan_account



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Feels I guess, R Plus L Equals J, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-15 03:13:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18490150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: But some of us don't know why.Takes places after 8x01, in the aftermath of Jon's reveal at Sam's hands, and the subsequent reveal to Daenerys.Am keeping the rating at M for a follow up but who knows, she might just ride the E line by then





	1. i was standing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zarya1640](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarya1640/gifts).



> The fanfic stretcher that was promised, if not the original one that was requested. Enjoy! I might add another chapter if I'm feeling extra cute.
> 
> Title and subsequent lyric from "Never Tear Us Apart" (I am currently partial to the Paloma Faith version because of my Umbrella Academy binging!)

 

Something had changed inside Jon.

He stood, alone, Sam and his hated words long since gone, his chest still shuddering with staggering heaves when it all struck him anew.

But it was true.

He knew it was.

He knew because something had changed inside him, the moment he’d touched that green dragon’s hide; He had felt it like a blow, like a spark, like a great crashing wave that had left him weak-kneed and scrambling desperately up Rhaegal’s side.  And when he’d grasped those spiked horns, when he’d felt that massive body beneath him shudder with power, with intent, he had been helpless to do anything but surrender to it.

He burned, now.  He was not sure he would ever be cold again, anymore, this spark of something he could finally put a name to now lit within him.

A Targaryen.

Anger swirled inside, fanning the flame, tempered only by a gaping, yawning pit of sorrow so deep he was not sure he could ever find the surface again, and a desperate, clawing fear that scraped against his heart.

The worst of it, he thought, even as it shamed him, was that the one person he wanted to see, the one person who might possibly understand, was the one this news would hurt the most.

Jon could do nothing but stand, and stare, his mother’s stone face mute in the flickering light, giving him no answers that he could understand.

Answers were there, however, howling through him, Rhaegal now a bright, glittering star in his mind, Ghost an icy, slow slide down his spine.  His wayward wolf was coming, a small comfort to his weary heart.

He knew, with a bitter certainty, what this news would do.  It was plain enough to him that no matter how he pled for old hostilities to be put aside, no matter how he begged that they unite together to fight this enemy whose name was Death, that there were those who would seek to gain from any division they could find.

Jon had no doubt he would be pressed from all sides, once more, to do things he did not wish, to take things he did not want, to hurt one he loved above all others.

He did not doubt that Sansa and Tyrion might be equally pleased to make this truth about him into a weapon, their displeasure and disapproval of his relationship with Daenerys clear in each clipped word, each cold look.

He would not have it.  Not now.

He was done.  Done being used, done being lied to, done with being nothing more than a pawn in another’s war.  This was *his* war, and perhaps his last war, and he would do things on his terms now.

He had no care for a throne or a crown or a title, and he was growing ever more sure that soon none of it would matter at all.

The scuff of a heel brought him from his errant thoughts, her step so familiar now that he did not need to raise his eyes from the half-burned candles at his mother’s tomb.

She came close, her furs brushing against his, and from the corner of his eye he watched her slowly draw off her glove, her hand trembling as she laced her fingers through his.

“Jon.”  Her whisper was low and tremulous, and as he haltingly raised his eyes to hers he saw a tear track down her cheek.  “I’m so sorry.”

“What?”  His own shocked whisper was his only reply, wondering if she knew, how she could possibly already know.

“I met your friend, Sam.”  As she finished speaking her face twisted with sorrow.  “Did you know it was he who cured Ser Jorah’s greyscale?” 

His jaw tensed at the mention of Sam’s name, at the niggling hint in the corner of his mind that whispered that his friend had done him no kindness in delivering the news he had, how he had immediately pressed Jon to turn on the Queen before him.  He shook his head negatively, not trusting himself to speak yet.

Daenerys pressed her lips tight together, nostrils flaring with the effort to fight back the tears that were escaping.  “And it seems I have repaid him by killing his father and brother.”  At this, she covered her eyes with her hand, withdrawing her other from his grasp to press against the stone ledge before her.  “He left before I could explain…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Dany.”  His voice, low and gruff with disuse, only made her shake her head firmly, her hand falling away, her eyes desperate for him to understand.

“It was at the Blackwater Rush, Jon.”  She parted her lips to speak again but he held up a hand, his eyes sharpening, stopping her.

“I thought those were Lannister armies.”  His eyes narrowed, his head shaking slightly in disbelief.  “House Tarly turned on the Tyrells?”

Daenerys nodded grimly.  “They were amongst the surviving Lannister forces.  The same who laid siege to Highgarden and slaughtered everyone there.”

Jon let out a heavy breath, understanding settling over him.  “That’s treason, Dany.  And they knew it.”  He gritted his teeth.  “The sentence for such is death in the Seven Kingdoms.  And they knew that as well.”

She was staring at him, relief and something else, that thing they did not give name to aloud, clear as a shining sun in her gaze, and he urged himself to remember how she looked at him before he destroyed it completely with what he said next.

“I will tell him,” he continued, turning his eyes slowly back to the statue of the woman who had inspired a war.  “But I fear I have no desire to see Samwell for a time.”

“Why?”  Her brow wrinkled in concern.  “What has happened?”  Her hand slipped in to his and he let it be an anchor, his last, in the storm that was coming.

“He told me something I had no wish to hear.”  Jon swallowed, his eyes tracing his mother’s face for what seemed the thousandth time.  “The truth.”  He closed his eyes, sighing and breathing deeply for several seconds before he found the strength to push on.  “A lie.”

He slipped his hand from hers, crossing to stand before the statue of Ned Stark, his father who was not his father, the man who had both lied to him and protected him, had saved him from certain death and given him the life of a bastard instead of no life at all.  “The biggest lie Lord Eddard Stark ever told.”

“Your father.”  She had turned her face to look at the carved visage of Ned Stark, a slight smile playing about her lips.  Many a night he had spoken of this man, of how he had tried above all not to shame him, to be the sort of son he might be proud of, bastard or not.

“No,” Jon answered, shaking his head.  “That was the lie.”  He spared a glance at the man who had raised him.  “Samwell said he is not my father.  I was never his bastard.”

“What?”  Now it was the Queen who seemed shocked, before her features creased with concern, her feet carrying her to him as if it were of their own volition, her arms around his neck and pulling him down to embrace him before he could even think to respond.

There was a comfort with her that he had been unable to comprehend, at first.  It had been so easy to fall into her, so natural to have her with him, that it had carried with it a certain unease.  She had made him feel alive again, after tasting the empty blackness of his own death, and he let himself soak it in before he gently pulled back.

“Oh, Jon,” she whispered, the lips he had come to worship turning down in a frown, “why would he say such things?”  Her confusion was evident, but his tongue had fallen thick and heavy as iron now, and he found all he could do was tug gently at her hand to bring her back before the image of his mother.

“In this place, sleep the Kings of Winter.”  He turned his face to hers, studying her profile as she stared up at the carved face.  “Save for her.”

“Who is she?”

Jon watched her, dread creeping in slowly even as his chest seemed to char with heat.  “Lyanna Stark.”

“Oh!”  He was not sure what he had expected, but her startled gasp, her eyes widening with recognition, had not been counted among the possibilities.  “Oh, my.”  As he stared on, she reached, her slim fingers tracing the stone woman’s cold cheek.

“You know of her?”  The sound of his voice was not enough to draw her full attention, and she answered absently, a strange fondness evident when she replied.

“Of course.”  She spared him a watery smile, her eyes again welling with unshed tears, before turning away.  “It has been told to me that my brother loved her above all others.”  She swallowed hard, leaning near to speak lowly, a sacred whisper laced with marvel.  “It is said that there, on the Trident, he died with her name upon his lips.”

Jon gave a guttural exhale.  “In the North, it was said that he kidnapped her.”  Jon’s eyes locked with hers, her face growing horrified as he spoke.  “Raped her.”

She shook her head, backing away slowly, pulling free from his reach as her eyes danced between the Jon and his mother’s countenance.  “No.  No, he would not have done such a thing, Jon.”  Terrible comprehension dawned on her face.  “Is that why they hate me so, Jon?  Not just for my father’s deeds but for this crime as well?”  Her eyes slammed shut, her shoulders sagging in surrender.

“It doesn’t matter what they believe.  They’ll know soon enough exactly why you are here, and why they need your aid.”  His frustration with the Northerners was an unnecessary fuel for the maelstrom that swirled within him, and he fought it aside.

He had to tell her.

He had to rip the bandage from this new wound upon his heart, and show it to her, and see what she would make of it.  No one else could understand, he realized.  He would pray that what he did next would not be as ruinous as he feared, that she had grown to love him in measures far greater than whatever doubts she may still harbor.

“Sam told me that Lyanna Stark is my mother, Daenerys.”  He could only watch as her face shifted, her earlier confusion and concern lingering, shaded with a growing wariness.  She understood what it meant, had realized it more swiftly than he had.  But then, she had grown up on different tales than he had.

Where he had thought to see anger he saw hurt and fear, stifled quickly by the mask he remembered well, the one he had first seen when he reached her shores.  He knew why she did it, knew she was trying to protect herself, but it gave him no small measure of heartache all the same.

“Say it, Jon.”  She gave herself away with the tremor in her voice.  “Tell me who your father is.”

His jaw felt heavy as iron, loathe as he was to say it, but there was no choice, now.  “Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Jon wondered, as he watched her face shift again, if he had looked just the same, shell-shocked and tossed adrift, suddenly unmoored from everything he had ever known.

He reached for her, and held his breath, his grasp solid and firm, her eyes flying to his and holding there as though he was the only thing, in that moment, that kept her tethered to the hard, unyielding stone beneath their boots.

“Do you believe him?”  She spoke softly, her voice small, her stare searching.

There was no answer but the truth, and the truth was that where there had been a gnawing, ever-present emptiness inside him there was now a new, pulsing awareness, a part of him that it seemed had slept until he had mounted the dragon named for his father.  Once felt, it could not be ignored, it would not be quieted.  He had known what it was to share such with Ghost, had never questioned this link to the great and noble House Stark, his very own living sigil that walked beside him.

But he was something else, too, something more, and it did no good to lie, not even to himself.

“Yes.”

Jon was not sure how long she stood, simply looking at him, her eyes straying to sweep over him before returning to study his once more.  The will to hide himself from her, to hurry away and lick his wounds was strong, but stronger still was his need for her to know what lurked beneath his skin, things he longed to say but could not, desperate to make this right lest they lose this war to each other before the Night King dared make his arrival.

Slowly, cautiously, she reached for him, taking his hands in her own.  “Yes.  I do as well.”  She gave him a sad twist of her lips.  “It certainly explains many things.”

“I don’t want that damned chair.”  She gave a start at the force of his words, frowning at him.

“I know.”  She tightened her grip.  “But that might not matter to your people.”  Her throat bobbed.  “Or your family.”

“It doesn’t matter.  I care about winning this war, stopping the Night King and his army.”  He tugged at her hands, pulling her a bit closer.  “A fact that neither my family nor my people seem to comprehend.”

“This war is all that matters now, yes.”  He hated the pain that seemed to radiate from her.  “But if by some miracle we survive, you must consider what comes after.”

Gods, the way his throat tightened was almost enough to choke him.  “It will only be by some miracle that we both survive this.  You know it.  You’ve seen what comes.”  Grief made his chest feel as though it would explode.  “And now he has Viserion as well.”

A thought that was not his stormed it’s way into his consciousness, and he felt near staggered by the weight of it.  “He knows.”  It was little more than a harsh whisper but she heard it, stepping near enough now that he could feel the hem of her coat against his legs.  “He knows what has become of his brother.”

He grunted against the sensation, his awareness of it making it swell and crest inside his very soul.  Pain, and rage, and such sorrow.  Brother, a voice screamed inside his heart, an agony he knew well, this loss cutting keen and sharp as a blade.

Daenerys leaned up, her breath fanning his skin with humid warmth.  “Yes.”  She tucked her forehead tight against his neck, her face hidden, hot tears dripping down.  “This is why they do not eat.  They are afraid, Jon.”  She gave a gasping sob and his arms locked around her, sick with guilt that this loss must be visited anew.  “They know what we must do now.”

“Aye.”  His hand cupped her cheek, his thumb sweeping at stray tears.  “He means to make war from the skies, now.  So we must take that war to him, you and I.”  He held her tighter, though his being trembled at the prospect of what he was proposing.  “We are the only ones who can.”

She sniffled, silver braids pressed against his dark furs, her curls cascading across his leathers.  Finally, she pulled back, straightening herself and setting her shoulders in a resolute line.

“They will try to use this, you understand.”  He was surprised at her sudden shift in mood, but only for a heartbeat.  She had learned as well as he had how to push her own pain aside, this much he knew.  They had no secrets between them, not since that first night aboard her ship, when she had loved him in ways he had only feverishly imagined.  “To divide us, to make us turn on one another if they can.”

“Aye,” he agreed, giving her a grim smile.  “They do not seem to be in a hurry to set aside their games.”

She eyed him, her brows rising delicately.  “You understand that you are…that we are…”  She trailed off, her hands gesturing between them.

“I know what it means.”  It had certainly occurred to him, in the aftermath of Sam’s words.  She was his father’s sister, his aunt.  But, as it had earlier, whatever hesitation that notion might possibly have stirred in him fled like shadows from sunlight.  He wasn’t of a mind that it mattered, not now.  This was the end of things, and they were here, together, and whatever it was that had grown thick and wild between them had long since escaped his ability to control it.

“What shall we do, then?”  She crept back against his chest, her arms creeping under his to circle around his back, her eyes locked with his mother’s sightless ones as she spoke.

“Fight.  Win, if we can.  Try to survive.”  He bowed his head, his nose resting against her hairline, the smell of her skin a welcome reprieve from the stale smell of the tombs.

“And then?”  He heard the true question that lay beneath her whispered one.

“Then,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the soft silk of her hair, “perhaps we can choose for ourselves.  Together.”

Her embrace tightened, a steel band that held him together as everything else seemed to be falling apart.  “Together, then.”


	2. you were there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the alarms sound he knows that time has run out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to keep it close to what we've seen post-ep while working with the previous chapter. I feel good about where things are headed for the rest of the season so we'll see how it all shakes out :)
> 
> No beta because I'm never patient enough for that. You know it and I know it, let's not pretend we're surprised. I'm sure there's typos, I'll spastically fix them later.

She had beaten him there, he realized, stopping and hastily tying off his horse beside hers.

Daenerys did not turn as he approached, staring down at the Keep below, the fires lit, their armies at the ready.

Waiting.

Waiting for death, because it was here, at last.  He could feel it, in the air the swirled around him, the furs at his neck being buffeted in the icy wind.  The storm was coming, icy thunderheads looming in the distance.  Jon knew what lay at it’s heart, he had seen the one who commanded the dead, and he could feel the drums of war come alive inside him.

Even in this second, where every heartbeat might be the last to pound within his chest, it was the sight of her, trying so hard to be brave, struggling to pull herself together in the wake of what he had revealed to her, her jaw working as she slowly turned, the tears she refused to free welling in her eyes.

“The dead are already here.”  She sounded so angry, so anguished that he could only stare.  “We have no time left.”  Her hand was at his neck in a flash, grasping the front of his leathers and pulling him close to her face.

“You must listen carefully now, Jon.”  The wind grew, threatening to whisk away her harsh, commanding whisper before it ever met his ears.  “Now we push away our tears.  Now we must have fire in our eyes.”

He pulled back with a jerk, his hands falling heavy on her shoulders.  “Get out of here, Dany.”  Her eyes widened at his frantic plea, her head shaking before he had even finished.  “Let me do this on my own.”

“You cannot win this war on your own.  He has Viserion, Jon.  He will use him.”  She pointed down at the Keep below.  “And they will be nothing more than lambs, awaiting slaughter.  Your people and mine, ripe for sacrifice.”

His heart sank, for he knew that it was true, that if the Night King struck first, if he used that dragon, then this war would be lost before it began.  They would be decimated, all those people below who waited corralled and contained, to be saved.

Jon’s eyes flew back to her face, a grim understanding on her features that made him swallow hard against his dread to ask what he thought he might not want to know.  But that seemed to be his fate, as of late, and so he pushed on.

“What will we do then, Dany?”  She refused to meet his eyes, instead looking down at the formations of men who stood at attention before his home.

“I will face your Night King, Jon Snow.  He and I will dance, and I will draw him from our people, I will battle him in skies far from here.”  Jon thought he might be sick, his stomach churning so violently at the image her words conjured that he turned his face away in disgust, willing himself not to retch.

“And me?  What shall I do?  Watch you die, then?”  She shook her head sadly at his plaintive questions, something bemused in her eyes as she realized he did not yet understand her intent.

“You and Rhaegal shall follow us.”  His eyes widened, shock and terror sweeping over him.  He had only ever been atop the massive creature once, and though he could feel something of the dragon inside him now he had now idea how he would attempt to command the beast in the heat of battle.  “Listen to me!”  There was steel in her voice, the warrior that commanded a khalasar into battle springing to life as he watched in muted fear.  “You will wait, and once he is focused on the battle before him, you will strike.”  She grew sterner, even as pain blossomed in the depths of her eyes.  “Attack from above.  Take his wings.”  She gave a shuddering exhale, her hands twisting together, fighting for strength.  “We will bring Viserion down, then we shall put and end to their misery and ours.”

She was having none his misgivings, her eyes hard and beseeching in the glow of the fires burning below.  “Put away your doubts.  They have no place here, not now.”  Her gloved hand rose, two fingers pushing hard into his chest, into the firm plane of his sternum.  “Close your eyes.  Put away everything but what burns.”  She pressed.  “Here.”

He did as she commanded, begrudgingly, peeking once to find her studying him.

“This is where he lives now, inside you.  The part he shares with you.  And inside him he hides a part of you.”  She leaned in, her whispered words warm against his cheek, her lips brushing his ear.  “He is yours to command.  What you feel he will feel.  What you wish he will do.  But you must be stronger than him.  Your will must be stronger than his.”

She rested her cheek against his, now, her voice trembling even though it remained strong, commanding even through her fear.  “That is the magic in our blood, Jon.  This is what it means to be a Targaryen.”  He pressed his eyes together, every syllable that fell from her lips feeling as though they seared themselves into his soul, power seeming to press itself upon his mind and heart and body all at once.  “You have the strength to bend him, Jon, and to command him to do your bidding.  But you must have the care to respect what he gives you.  You must take care not to break him.”

Jon could feel the truth in her words; already, as he tried to reach towards that thread that bound them, he felt the dragon reaching back. 

“Can you feel your dragon, Jon Snow?”

He gave a jerking, trembling nod, wrestling with this burden that had grown to the point of consuming him.

“Then call him.”  Her whisper had become a hiss, once that was full of the same sort of power he could feeling beginning to beat against the air above them.  The dragons were near.

And so he reached, letting everything fall away now, even the last, desperate hope of her that thrummed violently in his heart.  He understood, in the very next second, why she had warned him in such away, felt the frantic fear in the heart of the dragon named for his father, the dragon that had chosen him to lead him into battle.  In such power dwelt enormous strength, and for several unbearable seconds he felt overpowered, consumed by heat and flame.

“Now command him to come!”  She was louder, now, perhaps all to aware of what was happening to him, the only other person in the world who would understand.  He grabbed her words, pulled them hard within him, and pushed back with everything he had, his mind aching with the force of it, and did as his Queen urged, the word echoing through every fiber of his being as he gave life to it.

_Come!_

Within seconds there came a great, screeching cry, then another, deeper and closing in on them quickly, and the overbearing pressure in his chest eased, replaced by a resonating acceptance.

They landed with a tremendous crash, the last two dragons in all of existence, and as she gripped his hand in hers, drawing him with her too stand before them, he could not shake the sense that there was some sort of overarching destiny to all this, that for all that they had suffered apart they were here, now, together.

And in his heart, when she glanced at him, the ends of her lips tipped up in a tiny smile, something like pride in her eyes, he wasn’t sure anything else mattered.

Her smile fell away as she stared at the dragons, both creatures nervously shifting and swaying before them.  Daenerys dropped his hand, stepping towards Rhaegal, and he felt a rush of awful sadness as she knelt before his snout.  Her hand crept over green scales, caressing him with care.

“Take care, my son.”  She leaned forward, pressing a kiss just above one great nostril, and then rose.  Slowly, she returned, flicking away a lone tear that had escaped.

Daenerys stood beside him, their backs to the bluff and the keep below, her eyes only on the dragons.  For several quiet moments they stood, hands held tight between them, solemn and silent.

“I read once, in a book, that the Targaryens and their dragons answered to neither Gods nor men.”  Her voice was hushed, reverent, and as he looked at Drogon and Rhaegal he could see the truth in her words.  Dragons were fire made flesh, they were magic, and these two before the pair were the very last.

“Tonight, Jon, we’re going to find out if that’s true.”  She gave a shaky exhale, and it was a wonderous thing to him as he watched her straighten her spine, her chin rising, shoulders held high as she turned to him.

There was no fear in her eyes, not anymore.  No tears, no pain, no hurt.

There was only fire, and strength, and belief.  Not only in herself, this time, but in him, and it was enough.

Tonight, Jon thought, it might be possible.  Tonight, they would be Gods.

Tonight, he would believe, too.


End file.
